Skip to content

May I Have a WORD With You?! – RETURN

RETURN – תּשׁוּבָה – Teshuvah

If you find yourself at this time of year connecting in any way with the Jewish community you might come across the word, תּשׁוּבָה – Teshuvah. We spend the first ten days of our New Year – and technically the last month of the previous year – on this תּשׁוּבָה – Teshuvah thing.  Most commonly translated as ‘repentance’, an aspect of תּשׁוּבָה – Teshuvah is realizing our mistakes, asking to be forgiven for them and offering forgiveness to those whose mistakes have hurt us. While any one of those things may be no easy task, it only scratches the surface of where תּשׁוּבָה – Teshuvah truly points us.

The Hebrew letters that make the SH and the U and the V in the word are all about turning. Turning behind us. Turning around. Turning upside down and inside out. Turning within. Re-Turning. We turn to get a different view of something. We turn to make sure our attention is evenly spread out. We must re-turn to eventually get back to our beginnings, our origins , our essence.

At the root of realizing our shortcomings, at the heart of yearning to be better, at the core of forgiving another as they walk that same path … is the idea that we have something at our root, heart and core that is worthy, wise and wondrous. It is to this center, this origin that we seek RETURN – תּשׁוּבָה – Teshuvah.

No matter what it looks like — with us at Micah, with another community, in self-crafted moments or some combination of these – I pray that the call of our tradition this time of year reaches out to you … that it taps you on the shoulder and you respond with a turn … and in that moment you get a dazzling glimpse of your essence, spirit and divinity.  May what you see, hear and experience inspire you towards a joyous and meaningful 5783.

Other News

May I Have A WORD With You - Stone/אבן/Evan

Stone/אבן/Evan Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. (Genesis 28:11) Even if you like your pillow hard as a rock, I doubt that you would actually use a stone or a rock as a pillow. In Vayetzei,…

It Is Hard To Be A Jew In This Moment

It is hard to be a Jew in this moment … the horrid barbarism of Hamas’ attacks shakes us to our core.  Our people have been murdered, injured and taken captive … simply because they are Jews.  For some Jews these attacks recall their own direct experiences of hatred and…

May I Have A LETTER With You?! - ALEPH

             – א –             I did not even make it to a whole word, I got stuck on just a letter.  א – Aleph. One the insights about the experience on Sinai from our tradition that resonates most deeply with me speaks to what was actually spoken in that…